I awoke to the sound of my mothers’ lulling voice in Hebrew. Although I was no more than a slight child at four, I did manage to remember that on that morning, I would be moving to America. I didn’t know a word of English, nor did I know where the U.S.A was at the time, but, even then, I knew that something life changing was about to occur.



I still have dreams about a picture of me being taken while looking outside of the plane from the window. This is not possible, but because it was my first time on a plane, and because lift-off felt like a roller-coaster to me, I had a wild beam on my face! You may believe that all of this change to a small child at once would be too much to bear, but I was basking from each and every second of it.


Little did I know that next would come the hardships of beginning a new life in an unfamiliar “world”. Concluding pre-school was all too effortless as I didn’t have to converse or do much, but kindergarten would be far dissimilar.


For the first time, Omri and I would not be in the same class together. Although we were close beyond our time, I was eager to come to class without him. For the duration of the week, I did not do even a tad bit of homework, which was to count up to ten, and write half of the letters of the alphabet. I sat alone in a corner as others urged me to come tag them throughout recess. Because of this, I was not noticed at all in school, and when I came home one afternoon, I formed a tight fist and began to hit the wall as hard as I could. This alarmed Omri, who squalled to our father to come.

Little did I know that Omri had the same predicament, but there was nothing our parents could do but offer us attention when we arrived home. A week later, our mother came up with an ingenious thought; she wrote basic commands and questions on index cards like “I need to go to the bathroom” and I don’t understand”.

The next morning, Omri and I came to school with about fifteen index cards in our pockets each! When the time came to verbalize with the teacher, I would show her an explicit index card with the meaning in Hebrew on the back! In doing this, little by little, I emerged of my shell and made an American friend!

Even though I am still the naïve, curious, child that I was at four, I have egressed out of all of the “cool” Elmo Shirts and Barney hats and things of that sort. I no longer have the white-blond hair that I once had. In an odd manner, this makes me reminisce about those times. After I have completed pondering, I know that I would have been a different person if we didn’t move to the U.S. This is the reason for me reminding myself over and over again that all things happen for a purpose; a better purpose, to be exact.